Cat-Calling in Cuba
Being a solo traveler has proven more difficult than I had anticipated. I have traveled alone before, but never with such a long period of time ahead of me. And in the absence of a 3G network I can’t turn to my phone and start a Facebook chat with a friend back home whenever I feel lonely.
Making friends has been quite easy for me in the past. But with the language barrier and the fact that women here in Havana don’t seem to have much interest in getting to know me, for whatever reason, I am left with the only option of making male friends. Which isn’t a bad thing. I have many friends of the opposite sex. But things are a little bit different in Cuba. The other day, Mike, a guy that I met on the street who then invited me to sit down for a beer, explained it to me. Generally, in Cuba, Mike says, people don’t make friends of the opposite sex after puberty. So if a guy asks me to sit down with him for a drink and a chat, I can almost be certain that he is asking for permission to flirt with me and he probably has the intention of “conquering” me.
I had met Mike while I was getting lost (but surprisingly not very lost) in La Habana Vieja (Old Havana). I was wearing my earbuds, as I often do when walking on the streets of Havana, when Mike stops me to ask me why I’m wearing those. I tell him I’m listening to music. “But a beautiful girl like you! Maybe a man wants to tell you how beautiful you are and you can’t appreciate it because you can’t hear him” (I feel like I’ve heard that one before). When I tell him that after every other man on the street wants to tell me the same thing a girl needs a break from the noise. He laughs and tells me that my head is up in the clouds — that I’m full of myself. I tell him maybe he’s right but he’s never been a woman walking down the streets of Havana.
The next day I decided to experiment a bit by not wearing my headphones and count how many men would make advances on the street. I walked for a total of around two hours during that day and counted 25 whistles, air-kisses (like they’re attempting to talk to a bird or a cat — I wonder if that’s where the term “cat-calling” comes from?) and other attempts to get my attention. That makes around one advance every 5 minutes if my math is correct.
Walking down the street these men seem nice and friendly and you think that this one won’t say anything. But then, sometimes, the look in their eyes changes as you walk past them. And they utter it under their breath. “Hello, beautiful.” The simplest most innocent sentence in the world. In their eyes you sense desire, intention, prohibition even. So after a while, the refuge of earbuds and some music is necessary.
The men that cat-call on the street range in age — everywhere from the early 20s to the late 80s. I can even see some younger guys having that look in their eyes, although more innocent than that of their older countrymen, wanting to say something but they either lack the courage or they still haven’t reached the point of conditioning where they feel like they must say something to a woman walking by herself on the street.
On the subject of Mike thinking I was being full of myself, I don’t think it has anything to do with me or the way that I look. Sure the blonde hair and fair skin may have something to do with it. Here I look different, exotic even. But I believe that at its core this is a power thing. Men (here and across the world) look at a woman as an object that they can either appreciate/desire or not and that women need for men to tell them they’re beautiful to feel beautiful. Here’s the tricky part. I have often sought acceptance for the way that I look from men and I must admit that at times, when a man tells me I’m pretty I actually feel prettier — at least on the surface. This is how I, too, have been trained by society.
Now, back home a man will only talk to me if he’s drunk at the bar. And he will usually say something stupid and/or insulting because he’s afraid that otherwise I’ll know that he likes me. When in Iceland, whatever you do don’t make the other person know that you like them. It’s totally counter-intuitive and is probably the reason that so many people find their partner on the dance floor at 3am and then end up marrying them because they know finding another person will require more drinking and more insults at the bar. It’s frustrating and actually very boring because who really wants to talk to a drunk guy at the bar who is too afraid to show interest so he disguises it with insults? Oh, if only there was a world where we could all just be a bit more courageous to fight the social norms and conditioning, be respectful of each other, and not see the person of the opposite sex as an object for you to look at and enjoy while disregarding wether that person wants to be looked at in the first place.
To be clear, I have never felt unsafe while walking by myself in Havana. I don’t think these men will ever come too close. Maybe, deep down, they’re afraid of me, so they keep their safe distance and call at me to make themselves feel bigger? But safety for solo female travelers in Cuba is very high — I think even the highest in the region. And to tell you the truth I’ve felt unsafer sometimes while walking downtown Reykjavik after dark.
So what is my advise to the women who intend to visit Cuba by themselves or with another female friend? When alone, wear earbuds and sunglasses. It makes ignoring the cat-calling easier. if you’re with a friend, just keep walking and keep talking. And whatever you do, don’t make eye contact! If they get eye contact they will start talking to you and they can be pretty hard to shake once they pass that threshold.
